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HKS in the News April 10, 2012

1. New Submarine Cables Set to Revolutionize West African Internet (Juma) Voice of America

2. Grayson family just getting started in politics (Grayson) Business Courier (Cincinnati)

3. JOBS Act a win for startups and economy (Wilkinson) CNN

4. Viral By Design: Teams in the Networked World (Tumin) Harvard Business Review

New Submarine Cables Set to Revolutionize West African Internet

Voice of America

April 9

Quoted: Calestous Juma, Belfer Center

Topic: Internet technology in West Africa

Slow downloads and faulty Internet connections could soon become distant memories in West Africa. Two underwater fiber-optic cables stretching from Europe down the western coast of Africa are set to go online in mid-2012. The cables will bring faster, and likely cheaper, broadband Internet to nearly every country in the region…

Harvard University professor and telecommunications expert, Calestous Juma, says he has already seen the results in his native Kenya. "We are starting to see the emergence of small enterprises that rely on high-speed Internet or broadband access. For example, small start-up companies in Kenya that are working on animation for Hollywood. Animators can get contracts from Hollywood, do the work in Kenya and ship the product back to Hollywood," he said…

For someone who lost his last big election, Northern Kentucky native Trey Grayson sure seems to be having a lot of fun. I interviewed Grayson recently for a Q&A that appeared in our April 6 issue. Subscribers can read that here ...

The story talked about how Grayson wants to return to Kentucky politics someday. But I’m not sure it really captured just how well Grayson and his family are doing these days.

And then there’s this: As a brand new-to-the-school student, Alex Grayson decided to run for student council this year, a decision Grayson calls “much gutsier” than his decision to run for secretary of state when he was 31 as his first foray into politics.

“She’s like, ‘I’ll meet more people this way. And maybe I’ll win.’ And she did,” Grayson said...

The Jumpstart our Business Startups, or JOBS Act, is a win for entrepreneurship as well as bipartisan politics, and given economic hardship, unemployment and political bickering, it's time for a win. Next step: Declare victory and unleash an economic winning streak.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama signed the JOBS Act with overwhelming bipartisan support. The bill makes it easier for startups to raise money, to stay private when they need to and to go public when the time is right. Overall, it promotes a pro-entrepreneurship agenda…

With almost a billion friends on Facebook, six billion cell phone accounts globally, and twenty billion "things" from refrigerators to bridge spans to micro-medical devices soon to be wired by Internet, the digital age is upon us in full force. Everyone and everything is connected or soon will be by social media, on mobile platforms, and in the cloud. That puts vast new arrays of assets in play, from crowds to drones, sensors to shoppers. If teams can leverage those assets, hard and soft, digital and real-world, mass them quickly or marshal them with precision accuracy, teams can gain advantage as never before.

The recent Kony2012 viral video offers proof that something special is happening as a result of all this connectedness: digital collaboration has come of age. Garnering 100 million YouTube views in six days — the fastest ever to reach that mark — Kony2012 demonstrated that digital collaboration can create astounding effects not possible just five years ago...